


Simple Man

by foxjar



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Anal Sex, Blood and Torture, Bottom Kitagawa Yusuke, Canon Era, Drama, Handcuffs, Horror, Love Triangles, M/M, Minor Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira - Freeform, Non-Consensual Somnophilia, Pining, Possessive Behavior, Rape/Non-con Elements, Top Akechi Goro, Victim Not Aroused
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 08:01:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27610097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxjar/pseuds/foxjar
Summary: That's how this all started: Akira. Akechi didn't want him, didn't want to be anywhere near him or feel his hands or hear the softness of his laughter. The only place Akira's hands belonged, he figured, was around Akechi's throat.(And after all this is through, maybe that's exactly where they'll be.)But that didn't mean that anyone else could have him, either. Especially not Kitagawa Yusuke, the occasionally clever artist whose head was full of air and beautiful things and not much else.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kitagawa Yusuke, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 57





	Simple Man

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for animal death. The death itself occurs before the story takes place, but the scenes involving it get a little gory.
> 
> Title is after the Lynyrd Skynyrd song.
> 
> ["Dangerous Liaisons" by hydrangeatattoo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17038124) is, as always, a huge inspiration to me. 💙

Yusuke's blood tastes of metal, just like everyone else's.

"Guess you're not so special after all," Akechi says, sitting up on the bed, not bothering to wipe the blood from his chin. It's almost a pity that Yusuke tastes so average, so normal; with Akira's inane attachment to him, Akechi hoped there would be something extraordinary about him.

Yusuke is a disappointment, and telling him this fills Akechi with a strange sort of glee, bubbling in his chest.

His captive remains silent, but every so often he rattles the handcuffs locking him to the headboard, making sure Akechi knows he's still defiant. Still fighting even once his breath has left him, his body a battlefield of betrayal.

Akechi makes himself comfortable on Yusuke's back, perched above his hips. He runs his thumb down the back of his neck, and Yusuke trembles beneath him.

Weak. So weak. If it were Akechi lying on the bed, if it were Akira touching him —

But that doesn't matter. They are, after all, hypotheticals. Why dwell on them now?

The fact is that this is Yusuke beneath him. Akira's Yusuke.

"You won't hurt me," Yusuke says, voice tight with pain. Akechi can't see the way his face contorts with agony, not with Yusuke facing away from him, but he enjoys the thought of it. He enjoys it a lot.

"Won't I?" Akechi runs his hand down Yusuke's back, weeping with blood. "Haven't I already?"

The first character of his name isn't too difficult. It's the second that makes his hand ache, the tiny strokes cut into Yusuke's skin. Every time Yusuke tries to twist or buck him off, Akechi threads his fingers through his hair, relishing the heat of his sweat before he tugs, jerking his head back.

If he's not careful, he could enact real damage. Maybe twist Yusuke's neck a little too far back. Cut a little too deeply. It would be a pity if infection set in before Akechi was done with him.

But that's not what Akechi wants. That's not what he plans for Akira to see.

* * *

As a child, Akechi was happy enough to live alone with his mother — until he knew better.

(Until childhood innocence was stripped from him, as he strips away bits of Yusuke's skin now.)

Like any child, he was curious. Almost painfully so. Don't they say that serial killers often start out hurting animals when they're young?

Akechi wasn't like that; he just wanted to learn, to see the worlds kept hidden from him. When the opportunity presented itself to him, who was he to judge? To deny the possibilities set before him?

A mouse had found its way to the landing of their apartment building somehow. Looking for food, perhaps, when it died, leaving its mortal shell behind. He stroked its tiny coat with his tiny fingers, almost desperate to feel a heartbeat, but there was none. Its eyes were beady and black, staring into nothing — into him.

Akechi couldn't leave it to rot; somehow the thought alone disgusted him. So he grabbed a resealable storage bag from the kitchen, using it like a glove to carry the corpse downstairs. A sort of burial shroud.

His mother would know what to do. He could have waited for her; she was at work with someone she called a "client," but she'd be back eventually. Sometimes she'd return home in the middle of the night, exhausted as she dragged her body to bed, all while Akechi watched, his eyes wide. When he heard the front door open, he'd always snap out of his worried slumber and clamber to greet her.

She always came back.

But Akechi didn't wait.

In one hand, the mouse. In the other, a knife he'd taken from the kitchen.

He cut as carefully as he could, but he was a child; the corpse was small; the knife was dull. Mistakes were made. But he saw what was held inside, the tiny, gleaming viscera, and he put them in the plastic bag, filling it with water so that he could observe each of the organs. Small parts of a bigger whole.

Akechi wasn't a killer. Not until his mother died.

All bets were off the table then, all preconceived notions about his state of mind torn asunder.

* * *

"Akira isn't here to save you," Akechi says almost merrily as he cuts at Yusuke's back. Cutting bodies became easier for him to stomach over time, but he never thought it'd be a person beneath his knife someday. "He wouldn't come even if he knew where you were. Who had you. He doesn't care."

"That is a lie," Yusuke croaks, and the sound of his voice sends a jolt through Akechi's chest. The bitterness is still woven in his words, will always be there, but he sounds so tired.

"Is it? Who knows."

Akechi's name on his back might not turn out as awe-inspiring as any of Yusuke's paintings, but it'll be his own little work of art. He planned it out before he started cutting, even. Horizontal or vertical? He ended up choosing the latter because although Yusuke is thin, so thin, he's at least tall. Akechi can draw out the characters of his name down his back, his waist, even trailing over his hips if he has to. If he makes too many mistakes and has to cross out the misshapen characters.

The thought of inflicting even more pain on his captive gives him something to look forward to, but his desire for perfection keeps his hands steady. He wants Yusuke's back to be pretty for when Akira sees it, after all.

So very pretty.

Yusuke shakes his head against the mattress. "You won't —"

Akechi pulls his hair back again, soft and midnight blue, even in the semi-darkness. It must be closing in on evening now with the way the light outside is dying, but he doesn't want to check his phone just yet. His phone is for when he's ready for the end.

"Stop telling me what I won't do." When Akechi jerks his head back, spit slips from Yusuke's mouth and rolls down his chin. "Stop acting like you know me."

In the silence that follows once he's released Yusuke's hair, letting his head fall back onto the bed, Akechi almost thinks he can hear Yusuke say, "I thought I did know you. For a brief moment, perhaps, but I did."

But in reality, Yusuke hasn't said anything. He's staring off at the wall, and Akechi shifts so that he can lie beside him, stroking his hair almost lovingly.

Yusuke's eyes are beady and black in the dim light, just like that mouse when he was a child.

Yusuke, the mouse. Akechi, the knife. And Akira is, well, he'll be the boy who stumbles upon the grotesque scene, won't he? The boy from down the block who screams at him, telling him what a freak he is. When he pushes him to the ground, Akechi will try to protect the plastic bag with his body, the precious organs, the life, but the bag will burst open, a sick mess of flesh and secrets strewn across the pavement.

"You're pretty stupid, aren't you?" Akechi asks, tracing the trail of wetness down Yusuke's cheeks. Yusuke isn't even talking, but he can still feel the defiance within him. Why won't he scream? Akechi didn't even know he was crying until he touched his face.

And then the pieces of the puzzle clunk together. It feels so loud in his head, so sure, he looks at Yusuke's face to make sure he hasn't muttered anything prematurely.

Yusuke's eyes, still glimmering with unshed tears. His lips, still slightly parted as he sucks in the softest breaths.

"I bet that's what Akira likes about you," Akechi continues. "I bet you're a brat in bed. Is that what you're like?"

Again, it's almost as if Akechi hears through Yusuke's silence, probing into his thoughts.

Akechi's never had friends. Not real ones, anyway; no one he'd bother asking to call him by his first name. But with Yusuke here, handcuffed to the bed and lying on his stomach, Akechi almost feels a flicker of something. Life, maybe.

It's been so long since he's felt alive. And does it matter whether or not his companion is consenting to the relationship? When they're alone in Akechi's apartment, does anything outside matter?

"Has he ever been inside you?" Akechi asks, pulling Yusuke's hips up so he can unbuckle his belt and tear off his pants. Yusuke wriggles his hips and kicks his feet at him, but the effort is futile.

Akechi hadn't initially thought of taking all of Yusuke's clothes off. He hadn't planned on going there, that place of no return for both himself and his victim. He can slice skin, sure; even murder doesn't make him lose much sleep at night.

But there has to be a reason. It has to get him somewhere, give him something. Murder is a tool, a stepping stone.

And what would sullying Yusuke's body and mind in such a way get him? Would it ease some of his own pain?

Maybe it would be enough to take something of Akira's. Maybe that's all he needs to justify it. Yusuke's back is one thing; the idea twisting and wriggling in Akechi's mind, the scene of horror springing to life in his head, is something else entirely.

And if that's the case, then Akechi really has hit a place far beyond even the point of no return.

* * *

Kitagawa Yusuke is an exceedingly simple man.

This was part of Akechi's initial assessment along with "air-headed" and "eccentric." A little clever, perhaps — he was a Phantom Thief, after all, even though Akira was the glue that held them all together — but still an intellectual disappointment.

Yusuke knew Akechi was a suspicious character, although in all likelihood this was because Akira told him to be wary. Akechi could see it on his face, the way he always looked so serious, his brow furrowed as if it took a great deal of brainpower for him to even interact with Akechi. He was used to this since so few people were able to match his acumen.

Akira was a special case. Akira saw him for who he was.

That's how this all started: Akira. Akechi didn't want him, didn't want to be anywhere near him or feel his hands or hear the softness of his laughter. The only place Akira's hands belonged, he figured, was around Akechi's throat.

(And after all this is through, maybe that's exactly where they'll be.)

But that didn't mean that anyone else could have him, either. Especially not Kitagawa Yusuke, the occasionally clever artist whose head was full of air and beautiful things and not much else.

Akechi saw the way Akira looked at him, the way he'd sigh when Yusuke left the room, how Ann would squeeze his shoulder and say, "He'll understand someday."

If Akechi could help it, Yusuke would never come to "understand." And even if he did, it'd be too late; the mere thought of someone's hands on him would disgust Yusuke when Akechi was done with him.

That was the endgame he had in mind: to instill such terror into Yusuke that he would shy away from even Akira's touch. Whatever they'd had before, if it was anything at all, wouldn't matter. Akira would reach for him and Yusuke would think of Akechi.

Yusuke would scream, Akira's heart would shatter, and wherever Akechi was, he would finally have found some semblance of peace.

* * *

But plans change. Plans can change quite drastically, as Akechi is finding out. Even the most meticulously thought out excursions.

"Has Akira ever been in here?" Akechi asks, finger curling inside Yusuke. He doesn't care if it hurts or if it feels good; he just wants to wring something out of Yusuke. Some sound, some refusal.

Yusuke's body jolts at the intrusion, helplessly trying to shift away from Akechi's hand, but there is nowhere for him to go while he's still anchored to the bed.

"Or is it the other way around?" Akechi continues, his words strumming like hands on an instrument, trying to find the perfect note. "Or is it just that you wish it could be like that?"

The truth doesn't matter. Akechi would have hated Yusuke, anyway. Anyone who had caught Akira's eye would have ended up on Akechi's bed, strapped down and bleeding.

It's Akira's fault, really. If he hadn't looked at Yusuke the way he did, Yusuke wouldn't be here now. He could have kept living his life with his paintings and gallery prowling or whatever it is that he does, and Akechi could have pined for his rival in quiet.

And yet his captive remains silent even as Akechi's fingers twist inside him.

Akechi has never been intimate with another man before; he doesn't know what feels good inside, what will make Yusuke tremble. What will finally make him talk again, to beg him to stop or demand he continue?

But Akechi knows what feels good for himself. He slips out of his pants, setting them on the side of the bed before he positions himself between Yusuke's legs, prying them apart with ease.

"I bet that's it," Akechi croons, draping himself over Yusuke's back as he guides his cock to his entrance, sliding against his unwilling body. "Akira would never debase himself by lying with you, of all people."

The hypocrisy doesn't bother him; a laugh builds up in the back of his throat, but then he's pressing inside Yusuke, gasping. The tightness wraps around him and coaxes him deeper, deeper, even as he sees Yusuke's hands clench at the sheets, his hips shaking as fear courses through him.

Maybe he hadn't thought Akechi would push him to this point. From their time working together as Phantom Thieves, maybe Yusuke had thought he was someone else entirely.

So easily led astray. Akira never would've accepted his niceties so quickly.

But that's what sets them apart. That's what, in essence, set all of this into motion.

Akechi likes to think he could stop if he had to — but he doesn't want to, not with Yusuke's warmth around him, luring him in again and again, his hips snapping against the prone body beneath him.

Such an awkward angle. Akechi wishes he could see Yusuke's face, the tears streaming down his face, but this will have to do for now.

He wraps one hand around Yusuke's neck as a sort of handle while the other grips his waist. He squeezes, squeezes, tighter than before, tighter than he ever intended, and there's that laugh bubbling up inside him again as he feels Yusuke stop struggling.

No more kicking, no more squirming, and then Akechi is filling him, his hips jerking against him, fingers clutching his neck. It's too soon — he still has so much energy wound up inside him, electricity teeming throughout his body, making his fingers ache — but it won't be the end.

Is it the possibility that Akechi might have killed him that set him off, or was it the thought of fucking someone unconscious? Akechi isn't sure, but it gives him the excuse he craves. He feels for Yusuke's pulse, thrumming wildly in his throat, before he unlocks the handcuffs.

Not dead, then.

A strange shiver of sadness passes through him at the missed opportunity, but then he's rolling Yusuke onto his bloodied back. Beautiful work, really; Akechi couldn't be more pleased with how it turned out. He can take pictures to send Akira later, but for now, there's just Yusuke unconscious below him.

As Akechi fastens the handcuffs to the bed again, he can feel Yusuke's steady breaths on his skin. Yusuke's eyes are closed, and his eyelashes glimmer with tears; his sweaty hair is stuck to his forehead with tufts sticking out haphazardly from Akechi tugging it.

He looks at peace. Almost beautiful, even. Is this what Akira sees in him? The serenity of his sleeping face after a day of seemingly neverending energy, bouncing around art galleries and describing every inch of beauty in the world with his own words? As only he can describe it.

 _Small parts of a bigger whole,_ Akechi thinks.

The tremor that passes through him is unsettling, as if his body is almost trying to humanize his prey, so he crawls back between Yusuke's legs. He dips his fingers inside him, still seeping come.

Something changed the moment he decided he wants to see Yusuke's face as he fucks him. Or maybe the change began before that. Maybe he's always wanted to see what Akira sees.

Yusuke doesn't wake up when Akechi is inside him again, rocking his hips and moaning, letting his voice out because Yusuke can't move, can't speak. Akechi was right; there's something amazing about violating someone while they're unconscious. But then again, maybe it's just because it's Yusuke.

Akira's Yusuke.

He runs his hand up Yusuke's chest, feeling his ribs, his fingers dancing their way along each one. Akechi did his research on each of the Phantom Thieves, but they were all so boring that he filed much of what he discovered to the "useless" section of his memory. He pulls out one of the files in his mind, remembering the information he had set aside.

Madarame had kept his money a secret from Yusuke, had often kept food from him. Even now as Madarame sits in jail, Yusuke doesn't seem to be eating well. The trauma curls around him like Akechi's fingers pinching his nipples now, coaxing them to hardness even as Yusuke sleeps.

Parts of a bigger whole.

What might Yusuke be dreaming about? Art? Akira? Akechi raping him again and again until Yusuke's voice gives out and he can no longer make a sound?

There's beauty in his pain, and just when Akechi is thinking that there isn't anything he wouldn't give to see Yusuke's horrified face, he's opening his eyes, the brightest steel against the darkest night. His lips quiver, chasing sounds or words or a way to make sense of what's happening, and Akechi leans over him and kisses him.

There's beauty in his lips, too, but just as Akechi's mind is whirling away from him, Yusuke bites him, his teeth gnawing into Akechi's lip.

Akechi laughs, a deep rumble in his chest, before squeezing Yusuke's hips with both hands and forcing his cock into him harder, harder, until Yusuke finally does scream.

A symphony of erotic sound. A chorus of desire.

_Do you —_

Akechi finds euphoria in Yusuke's body, in the way he grimaces and tries to twist away. Could anyone make Akechi feel this good? Could Akira?

When he moans Yusuke's name, his voice is shaky. Garbled and yearning, even as Yusuke shakes his head from side to side. His cock lies limp between them, but Akechi is sure that, with time, he could coax pleasure from Yusuke's unwilling body.

With time.

But for now, he chases his own high. His fingers dig into Yusuke's hips as he violates him, his second orgasm of the night coiling through him. He snaps his hips forward, staring into Yusuke's eyes as he leans over him, his palms sweaty against the sheets.

Such a myriad of emotions in those eyes. Anger, confusion — and something else, something Akechi can't quite put his finger on. An emotion he could never imagine experiencing himself, not after everything he's been through.

Akechi can't help but squeeze his eyes shut as he comes, toes curling, scratching against the bed. He feels it at the base of his cock, the sudden, explosive relief; but then it's coursing through his whole body, this need to release.

He collapses on top of Yusuke, his chest heaving. In another world, in another life, maybe Yusuke wouldn't be restrained. Maybe Yusuke's hands would be in his hair, comforting him as any other lover might.

Again comes the voice, incessantly muttering the same question, and it's a while before Akechi realizes that it's Yusuke speaking, finally gracing him with his hoarse words. They fill the room, fill Akechi's ears, and he thinks: _I finally have a friend._

"Do you feel?" Yusuke asks. His voice is low and cracked, broken and defeated. Akechi wouldn't have it any other way.

"Do I feel what?"

"Anything." Yusuke turns his head to the wall again, facing nothing and everything at the same time. His whole world lies just beyond this apartment — if only he could escape Akechi's grasp. "Anything at all."

Akechi watches him stare at the wall, his eyes closing as he imagines escape, perhaps. Something, anything, better. Akechi touches his lips, his sweaty forehead, his smooth eyelids. So strange to find beauty in such madness. Something tells him that not even Akira has seen Yusuke like this, his misery painted across his face for all to see. Does Akira really even know him at all, then? Has Akira ever truly seen him?

"Would you believe me if I told you I feel more than almost everyone else in the world?" The more Akechi touches him, the more dead he feels, despondent and lifeless. Special, so special. "But not you, Yusuke. Never you."

Silence. Akechi wasn't expecting a reply to such a bold, nonsensical claim, but somehow it still bothers him. His fingers itch to shake Yusuke, to wring a reply from his taunting lips. If Yusuke is to be his, he'll have to learn.

"It doesn't matter if you believe me," Akechi lies. It comes out so easily, like pouring water into a glass. Akechi is made of lies.

But now, it suddenly does matter if Yusuke believes him. It matters a lot.

"You always seemed so lonely," Yusuke finally says. So few words, and yet they speak volumes. Akechi drinks them in, nodding his head not at the words themselves, but the sound of his voice, deep and mournful.

It's the reason why Yusuke always seemed so confused, so mesmerized by Akechi. Looking into his eyes, peering at his face — not because he was ignorant, but because he was curious.

Yusuke saw a part of himself in Akechi. A sad sort of camaraderie. Madarame, Shido. Not the same, but similar.

 _And now?_ Akechi almost asks. _What do you see now?_

 _Nothing,_ Yusuke might say. _Everything._

It's Akechi's new hobby to force words into Yusuke's mouth, even if it's all in his head. Who else in this world is destined to know him to such an intimate degree?

His phone lies on the nightstand, forgotten until now as it lights up. A number runs across the screen. A missed call he will never return.

It had been Akechi's intention to take pictures of Yusuke's back and send them to Akira. Maybe a day or two before he let Yusuke loose. And by then, Akechi would've been long gone; most of his belongings are still stacked up in boxes against the walls. A new name, a new life. He would be untouchable once more.

But now — why leave? Why leave when he has what Akira treasures most?

He brushes Yusuke's hair out of his face, their eyes meeting as Yusuke stares up at him, full of suspicion and hatred. If there's even an ounce of empathy left, Akechi can't find it, but that doesn't make Yusuke's eyes any less passionate, any less remarkable. His eyes are full of pain, and Akechi wants to preserve them that way.

 _What now?_ he must be wondering. _What horrors will this man force upon me next?_

Those beautiful steel eyes. Always curious, always belonging to another. Akechi will break them as he has broken nothing else before. How long until Yusuke forgets Akira's name? Until he forgets the passion to fight that Akira once instilled in him?

How long until he belongs wholly to Akechi?

Akechi kisses him, and this time, Yusuke has no strength to fight back.

"I think I'll keep you," Akechi murmurs.

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea swimming in my head for months, but I finally got it down recently.
> 
> I'm currently taking prompt suggestions (kinks/tropes) for pegoryu and akekita one-shots!


End file.
